And so it was, fair fellow Simmers, that I did depart my domicile and head out on a quest, to the fair city of far-off London. For many days and nights I did travel, in order to seek out the answers to questions asked. What is the Sims Medieval, what may be found within, and does this chamberpot match my draping? All these I didst find, for at the end of my journey was what I seek! Through dangers great and treacheries viles, I hath found what I did searcheth for. Three and a half hours of the Sims Medieval were mine for the taking!

…Okay, a trip to ye olde tavern may have been involved as well.

Create A Sim

First up, the CAS. It’s pretty much similar to the CAS of Sims 3. You can choose clothing, facial features, and hair exactly the same way as in TS3, except for a few differences. Firstly, there are four different voices to choose from, and like in TS3 you can change the pitch of each voice. I have to admit, the voices immediately strike you as medieval, with a sort of decorum and pacing in the Simlish that you don’t find in TS3. Secondly, there are only three options to change hair colour – Base, Highlights, and Roots. Thirdly, not all clothing options are immediately available to you. Depending on which Hero character you are creating, different outfits appear. So you’re not likely to find Blacksmiths and Bards wearing the same gowns as the Queen. Fourthly, there’s two new sliders – Blushed and Skin Age. As you move these up and down, they change how your sims look. High Blushed Sims have rosy-red cheeks and freckles, while Low Blushed Sims are pale, much more suitable for a member of royalty. The Sims age slider adds and removes age lines and wrinkles as you move it up and down the bar.

Finally, instead of choosing five Traits, you have to choose two Traits from the list below, and one Fatal Flaw. Below is a list of the Traits and Fatal Flaws that I discovered ingame, along with some notes aside those that I used.

So I’d named my Kingdom, created my Monarch, and then settled down to play the game. To start with, I played with Hysterical the Yarn Master of Socialia, whose traits were Friendly, Fun-Loving, but with the unfortunate flaw of being Bloodthirsty. The first thing that I noticed is that when I started playing, a prefix was automatically added to the Sim, so Hysterical ended up Lady Hysterical. In order to suit Lady Hysterical’s traits, I decided a revamp of the throne room was in order. Out went the old throne, in came the lion-headed throne, the blood-red walls and floors, the dark red pillars, the random skeletons chained to the walls, the Hunger and Punishment cages scattered about the place…and a Yarn Trestle placed upon the wall next to the throne. Alas, I couldn’t see a Spinning Wheel, but then again it could have been hidden away somewhere I couldn’t see it. Good news is that Kaching is still in the game, so I was able to afford this.

Next, I ended up doing the Tutorial Quest to start things off. Questing in this game is similar to WA quests, except with all the dull bits cut away and the good bits expanded on. The plot is communicated to you via the top righthand corner, however it’s possible to ignore them and to imagine your own responses and descriptions to your tale.

Hysterical’s quest started off with having to go Gussy Up before talking to her subjects. A queen must look her best at all times, after all! With her primping done, Lady Hysterical went off to speak to her Master Builder about creating new buildings in the land. Upon hearing that more wood and stone were needed, Lady Hysterical went off to the Forest in search of Lumber. It should be noted here that there’s a new handy Quick Links button, which brings up a list of places such as the Forest, the Beach, the Graveyard, etc, thus taking the camera to those spots automatically. Once she got to the woods, Lady Hysterical cheerfully picked wildflowers and frolicked about…until a bandit attacked.

Big mistake.

Hysterical, being a Bloodthirsty wench, gladly fought the bandit, causing said bandit to limp away in fear. Interestingly, injuries obtained ingame last for some time, depending on the severity of the wounds. Later on, I would have a Sim be attacked by a bear, causing injures that took days to heal, going down in seriousness until it was just a flesh wound. If I had a Physician, I think that I could have been able to go get those seen to, thus quickening the healing process. Another random thing is that Injured Sims can’t take baths, leading to some very smelly Sims.

Having scared off the bandit, Lady Hysterical rejoiced and then went off to complete the rest of her tasks, including finding stone in a rabbithole cave, hiring an advisor, sending a bully to the stocks, and flirting with a new visitor to her court.

At the same time, she had two tasks given each day in order to complete. They vary from day to day, and each one has a time limit. Doing these tasks in time bring rewards, whether it’s money, items, increased relationship with others, and much more. Not doing these tasks in time can lead to punishments such as being placed in the stocks or even being thrown into the Pit of Judgement. Tasks that Lady Hysterical had to do involved Proclaiming an Edict and Hunting a Great Bear. My later Sims had different tasks depending on which Hero they were. For example, my blacksmith Silent the Drunk had to find ores, pay taxes, fix broken weapons, and make specific items for customers such as Crude Plate Mail or Blunt Broadsword. My bard Emmy of the Bucket often had to search for inspiration, play the lute, write poems, perform for other Sims and, unfortunately again, pay her taxes.

Sounds like a lot to juggle, but it’s not as hard as it appears. It helps that the only bars in the game are Energy and Hunger, however there are still chamberpots, baths, and other furniture for Sims to use if the Watcher (that’s you, you lousy maggots!) so wishes.

Overall, I found the game extremely immersive. Whether the overall Quest I was on involved searching for lumber, performing before an art critic, or defending the land from the dreaded Dire Chinchillas, (and no, I am not kidding about that last one), there were many things that drew me into the game. From the way all the NPCs had titles and positions in their names, such as Sara the Assistant Pigkeeper, Brewer Baldwin, or Beastslayer Godwin, to the way the cooking system worked. There was no Cooking Skill, instead what you could make depended upon the ingredients from your inventory. Emmy of the Bucket often ate Seed Porridge made from seeds found while foraging, Lady Hysterical enjoyed Bear Soup made from the meat of the bears she ruthlessly slew, and when Silent the Drunk wasn’t setting fire to herself or drinking her breakfast, she made the non-ingredient-using Gruel. Other interesting bits included Nightmares while you were sleeping that gave you a choice similar to the Catacombs from TS3, being able to ‘Ask About Religion’ and getting a response back (Agnostic was high in Socialia due to the lack of either church at that time), and an improved lighting system within the buildings.

In the end, I played for over three and a half hours straight, and barely scratched the surface. In that time, I’d only managed to do two and a half quests, create three Sims, and added a Blacksmithy and a Tavern to Socialia. At the same time, I’d fought off bandits, set fire to myself, done a poetry reading, starved myself on purpose, flirted with a pretty merchant, crafted several poems, sentenced people to the stocks, thrown rotten eggs at them, killed a bear, got attacked by a bear, saved Socialia from Dire Chinchillas, got drunk several times, seen an NPC Sim willingly jump into the Pit of Judgement only to have the Pit Beast fall in love with them, and even ended up pregnant to boot.

T’was fun, and like my non-TS3 playing friend I took with me, I woke up this morning wanting to play even more.

Sounds like they've taken some of the best elements of several of their titles and added some medieval flavor. Can't wait to try it out! It will be a nice way to bide my time until Generations comes out for TS3.

I had zero interest in Sims Medieval until I read this. Sounds fun...maybe a little bit like Suikoden? Now I'm looking forward to hearing what other people have to say when it's released. Thanks for posting.

Oh I had no interest in Sims Medieval until I read this! Crickey it sounds a lot more active version of 3 at the moment, I love 3 so this should be better! Thank you for the review, I forsee myself having to buy 2 copies now, one for the mother and one for myself. :P

Thanks for this, sounds interesting. Think I'll wait a couple of weeks to see what others think, then I may have to add it to my collection. Sounds sort of like The Sims crossed with certain aspects of WoW.

Yay, other people are finally getting as excited as I already am, lolol... That was a brilliant preview, and I really enjoyed reading it. The game sounds like it's going to be a lot more involved than I thought it would be, and I'm very happy about that. Glad that it won't be an easy thing to complete. And if some of the other preview articles are to be believed, and there is a sandbox/freeplay mode after you've completed the main game, I'm even more in lust with it :D

The big question mark for me is still replay value, but time will tell on that one... sounds like there's enough gameplay there to justify the purchase price anyway

And then... EPs

From what I was able to see, I can definitely see replay value. I was seriously tempted to continue on with some higher-level quests for my blacksmith, however I forced myself to try a new character and found that I liked that one as well. The order in which you add characters into your story affects how you do a certain quest. For example, I played one quest with my Blacksmith one way, however there was a second option I couldn't choose because I didn't have a Jacobean priest in the kingdom.

In addition to this, there's a lot of different Kingdom Ambitions. At a rough guess, when I first saw the list, (most of which was hidden, not sure by EA or if they need to be unlocked), I estimate there to be at least fifteen different Ambitions.

There's also an almost unlimited type of Hero Sims you can create, dependant on your imagination. Some of the EA-made thrones include barbarian, princess, nature queen, knight lord, magic monarch, etc. So you could play a resource Ambition with a greedy Barbarian tyrant that loves to torture the peasants and drag as much gold out of them as they can, or a loving Nature Queen might want to choose the same ambition in order to help her subjects.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Enjoji

And if some of the other preview articles are to be believed, and there is a sandbox/freeplay mode after you've completed the main game, I'm even more in lust with it :D

If that is true, when my copy arrives I will fall asleep at night snuggling it. While there was still a slight sandbox feel to it around the tasks and quests, such as how I took Emmy of the Bucket over to Silent the Drunk's house when she should have been trying to find someone to kiss, it's still nice to think that you can still continue playing.

I would like to clear up the little matter of my sanity as it has come into question. I am not in any way, shape, or form, sane. Insane? Hell yes!

Can you add mods and cc from regular Sims 3 or is it entirely different?

While we don't really know yet, one thing is clear just from looking at the game: it's different, but not ENTIRELY different

Seems unlikely that you'll just be able to plop mods from one to the other, but it seems very likely that conversions will be possible. The question is how much time it will take to figure out how file formats differ... and how/whether TSM will READ mods, out of the box.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SilentPsycho

From what I was able to see, I can definitely see replay value. I was seriously tempted to continue on with some higher-level quests for my blacksmith, however I forced myself to try a new character and found that I liked that one as well. The order in which you add characters into your story affects how you do a certain quest. For example, I played one quest with my Blacksmith one way, however there was a second option I couldn't choose because I didn't have a Jacobean priest in the kingdom.

In addition to this, there's a lot of different Kingdom Ambitions. At a rough guess, when I first saw the list, (most of which was hidden, not sure by EA or if they need to be unlocked), I estimate there to be at least fifteen different Ambitions.

There's also an almost unlimited type of Hero Sims you can create, dependant on your imagination. Some of the EA-made thrones include barbarian, princess, nature queen, knight lord, magic monarch, etc. So you could play a resource Ambition with a greedy Barbarian tyrant that loves to torture the peasants and drag as much gold out of them as they can, or a loving Nature Queen might want to choose the same ambition in order to help her subjects.

Right, I can see the replayability in the sense of a lot of different storylines. I guess my feeling of unease in this area comes more from the fact that the kingdom never changes (aside from adding preset buildings), and it doesn't seem to be very large... certainly not so large that you wouldn't see all of it playing through the game once.

While there are clearly going to be many different things to do in different playthroughs... it seems like there isn't going to be anything new to SEE. Exploration is a big part of RPGs for me, and building is a big part of the Sims games, and this will have neither, which makes for a pretty fixed world.

Still, that may be overcome by the diversity of gameplay. We'll see :-)

mysticdiva2 - If you look in the "Mods" thread which is under the forum linked in the first post, there's some info on that. Rick includes the needed folders and file to get it going. There's only a couple mods available though, and mods for TS3 won't work in Medieval.

SLIGHT SPOILER ONLY READ IF YOU LIKE USING THE TESTING CHEATS FUNCTION!!!

Thou hath been warned!!!

The old testingcheatsenabled function is in the Sims Medieval as is bringing up the Console to type in either Kaching or Motherlode and some other things as well.

Testingcheatsenabled has changed just a tad though, you have to go into where you installed example:

C:Program Files/Electronic Arts/The Sims Medieval/GameData/Shared/NonPackaged/Ini and open the file called Commands. Be aware though that you will have to right click on the file first and change the file from a Read-only to a editable file. Once you have done that open the file and change the TestingCheatsEnabled = 0 to a 1. And that should do it! Enjoy!!